style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Yes… yes, of course I do. How are you, Lily? How are your parents?’
She sounded as though she was old enough to be Lily’s grandmother, Fern recognised ruefully, but there was not even a decade between them.
It was totally contrary to Fern’s own nature to be unkind to anyone, much less an obviously shy young girl like this, even if… when…
Even when what? Fern asked herself bitterly as she smiled warmly at the younger girl, gently trying to put her at her ease.
Even if Adam loved her…
Her heart seemed to jolt right up into her throat, its already nervous beating becoming a frantic distressed hammering.
The palms of her hands were damp with sweat, her nails curling painfully into their softness as she fought to suppress the cry of agony she could feel building in her throat.
What was wrong with her? She had always known that one day Adam would fall in love… that someone would eventually cause him to abandon the bachelor state which Nick had always claimed he would never voluntarily give up.
‘If you really want my stepbrother,’ he had told Fern once before they were married, ‘then the only way you’re likely to get him is by tricking him into getting you pregnant. Very keen on being seen to do the right thing, is our Adam. Do you want him, Fern?’ he had added slyly.
‘Adam is just a friend,’ she had responded tautly. After all, no nice, decent girl ever admitted even to herself that she could possibly want a man who did not want her… or at least that was the message she had picked up from her mother’s carefully protective teachings.
And she had believed it. And still believed it?
She could feel the pain stirring inside her again, tearing, wrenching, streaked with guilt and shame.
Adam was standing so close to her that she was actually conscious of the scent of him, not the faint cool hint of cologne he was wearing, but the basic personal male smell…
Despairingly she moved back from him, giving Lily a small apologetic smile as she started to excuse herself.
‘Fern.’
She could hear the tension in Adam’s voice and the anger, and her own stomach muscles clenched in response.
She couldn’t look at him. She dared not…
‘I think Venice wants us to go through into the dining-room,’ she told him distantly as she turned away and looked for Nick.
The meal they were served was superbly presented, an exotic combination of all that was luxurious and first rate, which must have cost Venice as much as she probably spent on food in a year, Fern reflected tiredly, unable to face the richness of her food, nor the smell that rose up from her plate.
They had almost finished their pudding when without warning Venice turned to John Parkinson and asked, ‘What do you think of this plan to bulldoze Broughton House and build shops and offices on the land?’
‘What plan?’ Roberta’s husband asked with some concern.
‘Oh, haven’t you heard?’ Venice queried. ‘It’s all over the town that someone local is planning to put in a bid for the place, ostensibly as a private home, but in reality because he… they have very different plans for it.
‘Of course it would have to be someone with the right kind of local contacts and influence so that they could get planning permission pushed through, wouldn’t you say so, Adam?’
Although she was smiling sweetly at Adam, no one could have been in any doubt that it was Adam to whom Venice was referring when she spoke of ‘someone local’ acquiring Broughton House. But surely Adam would never lend himself to that kind of scheme?
It was true that Adam, as an architect, was bound to be interested in anything which might lead to new commissions, and it was certainly no secret that he was part of a highly successful local conglomerate which had designed, built and now ran several small local shopping parades and housing schemes, but all of them had been completely above board and free from any taint of the kind of underhand usage of power and position which Venice was now none too subtly implying.
‘Perhaps we ought to organise a committee to oppose it,’ Venice continued without giving Adam any chance to reply. ‘I have actually heard that what’s being proposed isn’t just a small parade of shops, but a huge hypermarket. Of course you have to admire whoever it is for his chutzpah. If he can pull it off, it will make him very, very wealthy, and I suppose to be fair there will be those who will say that the town does need that kind of facility. What do you think, Adam?’
‘Broughton House is in an area of “outstanding natural beauty”,’ Adam told her quietly. ‘I should imagine it would be impossible to get planning permission for that kind of venture.’
‘Oh, but surely not if one had the right connections… knew whom to approach and how,’ Venice persisted, smiling sweetly at him.
There was a small, uneasy silence which Nick broke by turning to Adam and saying silkily, ‘You don’t seem particularly surprised, Adam, but then perhaps you know more about what’s going on than the rest of us. After all, as a member of the town council…’
‘Like Venice, I have heard the rumours,’ Adam countered, ‘but that seems to be all they are… rumours.’
‘But the house is up for sale and unliveable-in in its present state,’ Venice persisted. ‘And surely you, Adam, both as an architect and a councillor, must know something…’
‘Mrs Broughton lived in it…’
Fern froze as she heard the unsteady huskiness in her own voice, her words cutting right across Venice’s deliberate probing, deflecting attention away from Adam and towards herself, drawing not just an irritated little frown from Venice at her intervention, but an angry glare from Nick as well.
‘Fern has always had a ridiculously sentimental attachment to the place,’ Nick announced tersely, giving her a cold look.
‘Well, I for one would be very surprised to hear that anyone would be foolish enough to imagine they could get planning permission for that kind of venture,’ Jennifer Bowers announced briskly. ‘And if anyone tried, I should certainly oppose it. After all, we haven’t spent all these years protecting the character and history of the town only to go and have hypermarkets built on its unspoilt land.’
‘Adam’s the expert on the town’s history and preservation,’ Venice persisted. ‘And I still have a sneaking suspicion that he knows more about what’s going on than he wants to tell us.’
Because Adam himself was involved in some scheme or other to destroy the house? That was what Venice was implying, and Adam himself had done and said nothing that really contradicted her subtle accusations. Because he couldn’t?
As she glanced round the table, Fern suspected that she wasn’t the only one wishing that Adam would make a more definite and unequivocal rebuttal of Venice’s hints.
‘Have you heard anything about this supermarket business?’ Roberta asked her later as they waited for Venice’s maid to bring down their coats.
